Nature Is Disappearing from Children's Books, Study Finds

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Natural environments, such as forests and jungles, appear to be
losing their place in children's books, according to an analysis
of nearly 8,100 images from 296 award-winning kids' books.

Researchers divided the images in the books published between
1938 and 2008 into three categories: depictions
of the natural environment ; those of the built environment,
say, inside a house, or those showing a middle ground, such as a
mowed lawn. They also noted whether or not any animals appeared,
and if so, how they were depicted.

From the late 1930s until the 1960s, built and natural
environments were depicted almost equally, then images of cities,
towns and indoors started to increase in the mid-1970s, while the
natural environment showed up less and less frequently, they
found. Images of wild animals also declined.

The books examined were either Caldecott Medal winners or
honorees. Judged by the American Library Association, the
Caldecott awards honor the best illustrations
in children's books in a year.

"I am concerned that this lack of contact may result in caring
less about the natural world, less empathy for what is happening
to other species and less understanding of many significant
environmental problems," J. Allen Williams Jr., lead researcher
and University of Nebraska-Lincoln sociology professor emeritus,
said in a press release.

Williams and colleagues note that over the past 70 years, more
people have
lived in urban environments, so it's no surprise these images
would be prominent. However, the steady, significant increase
they saw in the prominence of built environments led them to
conclude: "Natural environments have all but disappeared."

"These findings suggest that today's generation of children are
not being socialized, at least through this source, toward an
understanding and appreciation of the natural world and the place
of humans within it," Williams and colleagues wrote in a study
appearing in the February issue of the journal Sociological
Inquiry.